


i was a flight risk (with a fear of falling)

by oblivioluna



Category: Purple Hyacinth (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Episode Divergence?, Angst and Fluff, CAN THESE IDIOTS JUST TALK FOR ONCE IS THAT LIKE A THING, Episode 43 But Nothing Goes Wrong, F/M, Take 486, Trauma Bonding, kieran white is a simp and it’s canon at this point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:13:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24906649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oblivioluna/pseuds/oblivioluna
Summary: In which Kieran understands that some things are unforgivable, and Lauren understands that some people must be forgiven.(Or, Episode 43, Take Two.)
Relationships: Lauren Sinclair/Kieran White
Comments: 8
Kudos: 84





	i was a flight risk (with a fear of falling)

She storms in like the thunder coming from above.

The rain had only started a while ago, but now, it coarses down her pale skin like rivers in a long-forgotten underworld, smoke coming out of her heaving chest. But she stands arrow-straight, auburn hair whipping in the damp cave wind, a warrior ready for battle. Kieran steels himself for the incoming barrage of insults she is soon to throw against him, closing the book he was barely skimming over in his rocking chair.

Shut them out. Lock and key. It’s always been this way.

“Hello, officer.”

_“Kieran.”_

Her voice is her own, but it comes out as a growl: predatory, indistinguishable. She throws her coat across the floor with all her might, and before he knows it, she’s at his throat, fisting at his lapel with all her might.

“You know what you _did_.”

“And what exactly is that? Would you like a towel, officer, you’re going to get a cold—”

“Stop it!” she shrieks, panting. “Stop _pretending_. Is this a joke to you?! Is the merciless taking of numerous lives in the Tower _nothing_ to you?!”

“I wasn’t aware we had to tell each other about our hobbies.”

“You killed them.” She is shaking now, a barren tree in the wind. It makes him fear. “You killed them all.”

He sighs. It is all he can muster. “You know why.”

“How can I even trust you after this?” Lauren exclaims. As soon as his guilt rises, anger does too, in response to her own wrath. “Hell, at this point I don’t even know what I’m doing with you - bargaining, thinking I could even - you weren’t supposed to _break_ our contract—” Incoherence becomes her, and Kieran knows he is not wise, and does not, in fact, shut his mouth in response to her unfiltered attack against him.

“I don’t know,” he mutters lowly, coming face to face with her. “What _did_ you think our contract was about, officer? What were you planning on doing with me? Didn’t we make a deal? I’ve broken nothing, darling.”

“A slaughterhouse,” she chokes out, and before Kieran can manage to say anything else, she’s pinned him against a wall, hands on either side of his shoulders. Her eyes are a bitter amber in the low light, scorching him alive. “You sent them to the slaughterhouse. All of them.”

“I had no choice.”

“You—”

“You _know_ I had no choice.” Kieran’s voice grows louder as he takes a step forward, Lauren backing away as his hand snakes around her wrist. “If I didn’t do my duty, _Lauren,_ the Leader would’ve suspected. Do you think I’m as foolish as to spare them just so that you could keep your little moral game alive even though we would’ve been outed right then and there?”

“My moral game alive.” She looks like she wants to kill him. Kieran keeps going.

“But you know this,” he says, slowly. “You’re not mad I killed them. You’re mad I killed Anslow, aren’t you?”

“You bastard,” she hisses, trembling. “You _bastard._ If you think for a second that’s what this is about—”

“Because you wanted him for your vendetta, didn’t you?” he exclaims, and Kieran doesn’t bother to shove aside his own ruthlessness as he tugs her forward, locking his secrets in further, further, the closer he holds her, the scent of rain and orange blossom and gunmetal never leaving his side. “You call me a merciless murderer, Lauren, but who in here is the selfish hypocrite?”

She breaks.

In hindsight, he should’ve seen the flash of metal at her side sooner, but no one ever really expects a girl with a gun to be so swift with knives. The dagger she holds to his throat is a simple one, silver at his skin. How he’s ended up on the damp floor of the cave and her above him, Kieran doesn’t bother to understand.

_“Selfish,”_ she growls. “Selfish when you didn’t even tell me about what you were doing.”

“And if I had?” he taunts. “It wouldn’t rid you of your vendetta, Lauren.”

“It never would’ve,” she retorts. “Just like it wouldn’t have rid you of your bloody hands. But I would’ve understood. Tried to,” she shouts. “We made a deal, and you broke it.”

“Correction,” he says, gasping slightly as she presses the blade down. “Both of us broke it.” 

And yes, now is a bad time for his mind to kick at his head and capture this scene like an artist would, with an artist’s eyes: but he does it anyway, mapping out the two of them like a constellation in starlight. There she is, his nemesis, vengeance incarnate, auburn hair undone around her shoulders. Kieran captures this sight of her like a photograph - he can feel the phantom weight of her hovering above him, the dew on her wet clothing, the cut of her jaw, the curve of her fragile neck, the ferocity of how she holds the handle of her dagger. Anger meant for him and him alone. Her facade down for him and him alone. In an odd gesture of what might be called masochism, Kieran feels a fierce instinct to keep this wrath for himself alone.

Or maybe he really is more selfish than her.

“I might kill you first,” he murmurs in his ear. “How does that sound?”

“I think you’re better than that.”

“Then you don’t know me.”

“You’re right.” He sighs. “I don’t.”

It throws her off.

“I did what I had to do,” he says with harsh resignation. “And again, you know that, officer. Call us both selfish. What are you going to do about it?”

She hesitates, biting her lip. Lauren’s anger doesn’t recede in the slightest, but her blade leaves his skin.

“How can I trust you after this?”

“Hard to trust someone you never really trusted in the first place.” It’s a low blow, he knows it, but it’s enough to get her off him, both of them tumbling into sitting positions across from each other, staring the other down.

“Hard to trust the bargain we made,” she says after a moment’s silence. “I wanted my own vendetta, _fine._ Like you don’t have yours. You wouldn’t even answer my question about your reasons for going against the Leader, Kieran. Like you’re any better than me.”

“Oh, I’m worse.”

She frowns at his honesty, something he can’t discern darkening her gaze.

“Don’t pull the pity card, assassin,” she mutters. “Answer my question.”

“You first. Anslow was your target and we both know it.”

Lauren looks as if she’s seconds away from pulling her gun out this time, but thankfully, doesn’t.

“The investigation that got me booted from the investigative unit,” she forces out eventually. “Anslow was my only key. And you killed him. Happy?”

“From the sound of your voice, I don’t think I should be.”

_“Kieran.”_

“That’s not it,” he says, refusing to give in. “That’s not all.”

“And you?” she says, raising an eyebrow. “You call me selfish and then hardly explain why you didn’t even bother to tell me why you did why you did - even if you were required by the Leader to do so.”

He exhales through his teeth. “Officer—”

She cocks her gun.

Kieran swallows harshly. “You already see me as something monstrous. This doesn’t change that.”

“Deflecting.”

“You’re not any better.”

“Then we’re two hypocrites in a pod,” she bites out, but reins herself back in. “Just...tell me.”

“If you knew in advance, would it have really changed anything?” he says. “Tell me this: say I did tell you in advance. Of what I had to do. You’d lose your chance at revenge - justice - whatever that may be. Would you really have understood, Lauren? That I was forced? That I still act as the Leader’s puppet and have no choice but to go down the path I’ve been on for _seven years?_ ”

She breathes, the smoke long gone for her lungs. Silence stretches between them, easy as honey candy.

“Come here.”

“What?”

“I said come here,” Lauren snaps, turning her back to his. “You’re shivering.”

“You’re the one with wet clothes,” he says in exasperation. But he obeys. “Didn’t think through storming through the rain, did you?”

“I shouldn’t have wasted my knife on you,” she groans. But Lauren falls silent when his back touches hers, warmth flooding her skin through the damp cotton. They stay like that for ages, eons, back to back, shoulder to shoulder, settling in the weight of whatever they have given each other freely - and the lack of them, torn off in scalding heat.

So when Kieran tips his head back to meet the ceiling, she does too, black against red, in the silent understanding that nothing will ever be the same between them again - and that, for once, it will work out.

**Author's Note:**

> *strums guitar* 
> 
> *clears throat*
> 
> AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
> 
> (They communicated. For once. Everyone please clap.)


End file.
